Abstract and Contents

"Globalization, Governance and the Environment" 
Special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist

David A. Sonnenfeld and Arthur P.J. Mol, eds.

Volume 45, No. 9, May 2002, Sage Publications

Abstract

In the context of rapid economic globalization, radical changes in global geopolitics, and widespread adoption of free-market economics, major shifts and realignments in environmental governance have occurred over the past two decades. "Command-and-control" regulatory approaches have been criticized since the neoliberal counterrevolution of the late 1970s, and market- and civic-driven economic approaches – eco-taxes, "best practices" environmental management, green consumer activism, community-driven environmental regulation, and more collaborative models of environmental governance – have assumed a new visibility. Referred to in some quarters as "ecological modernization," such reform-oriented initiatives have provided the groundwork for considerable experimentation in environmental governance in northwestern Europe (and less so in North America) over the past two decades. Contributors to this symposium examine such new approaches to environmental governance from a variety of disciplinary, theoretical, and geographical perspectives. The volume begins with an essay and introductory article on globalization and the challenges of environmental governance. Other articles examine, respectively, experiences of environmental policy development in 30 advanced, transitional and developing countries around the world; new forms of environmental governance created in the context of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); the effect of European integration on ecological modernization in Central and Eastern Europe; the alleged failure of regulation to stimulate environmental innovation in industrial technology; and the efforts of two of East Asia's high-growth economies – China and Taiwan – to integrate environmental considerations into economic policy making. The symposium concludes with the editors' synthesis of ideas and suggestions for further research.

Keywords: globalization, environmental governance, environmental policy, environmental reform, environmental innovation, ecological modernization, capacity building, NAFTA, Mexico, North America, China, Taiwan, Asia, Europe

Contents

Preface: Green Capitalism, Green Governmentality

Michael Watts, University of California at Berkeley, USA

Globalization and the Transformation of Environmental Governance: An Introduction [full text]

David A. Sonnenfeld, Washington State University, USA; and Arthur P.J. Mol, Wageningen University, the Netherlands

Capacity-Building for Ecological Modernization: Lessons from Cross-National Research

Helmut Weidner, Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), Germany

Governance, Trade, and the Environment in the Context of NAFTA

Roberto A. Sanchez, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

Ecological Modernization or Subversion? The Effect of Europeanization on Eastern Europe

Mikael Skou Andersen, National Environmental Research Institute of Denmark (DMU)

Government and Environmental Innovation in Europe and North America

Nicholas A. Ashford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Integrating Environmental and Economic Policy Making in China and Taiwan

Michael T. Rock, Hood College, USA

Ecological Modernization, Governance, and Globalization: Epilogue

David A. Sonnenfeld and Arthur P.J. Mol

Contributors

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